Eric Boehlert: How the media botched the J&J vaccine "pause" story
https://pressrun.media/p/how-the-media-botched-the-j-and-j
How the media botched the J&J vaccine "pause" story
Headlines matter
Eric Boehlert
10 hr ago
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Unfortunately for Tuesday's J&J breaking news, crucial context was missing from most of the headlines.
Instead of stressing that less than one in a million J&J shots had produced the troubling blood clot reaction, the press focused on "concerns" surrounding the "halt," and how the move "threatens to slow U.S. pandemic progress:
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On Tuesday, the J&J announcement was treated as the biggest Covid news in weeks. The halt came at a time when there had been endless encouraging news about the vaccine rollout during Joe Biden's presidency.
Is it possible the bad-news angle appealed to the press? A recent study found that the U.S. press prefers to lean into bad Covid news:
The [pandemic] coverage by U.S. publications with a national audience has been much more negative than coverage by any other source that the researchers analyzed, including scientific journals, major international publications and regional U.S. media. The most well-read U.S. media are outliers in terms of their negativity."
The important J&J pause story was one that cried out for full context in all aspects of the coverage, including the all-important headlines. Instead, the press bungled the assignment.
UPDATED: Axios Neal Rothschild notes that
of the 20 most-engaged stories on social media about the Johnson & Johnson pause, just two headlines included the context that the blood clots were rare occurrences, according to data from NewsWhip.